


This Is Not Our Fate

by DenebYL



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, FFXV Spoilers, Gen, One Shot, Pain Train, also other characters but unfortunately like mentioned once or twice, if... anyone doesn't know the ending at this point... might as well be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 02:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13604082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DenebYL/pseuds/DenebYL
Summary: One night in Lestallum, Gladiolus wishes upon a shooting star.29/3 Edit: this and that.





	This Is Not Our Fate

**Author's Note:**

> hop on the pain train fam
> 
> I had to google "insomnia falls scene" and relive the pain all over again.
> 
> Was this worth it?  
> Why yes. Yes it was.

_"There must be some kind of way out of here."_

Jolted awake from a nightmare just moments ago, Gladiolus sighs.

He shakes his head, and lies back down onto the bed he had won from Prompto after a game of King's Knight. 

But he couldn't fall asleep. The bed was soft. The cotton sheets weren't dirty. Everything was fine. So why does sleep elude him so? 

Much to his frustration, he got out of bed, the sheets and pillows strewn about haphazardly, and he walked ever so cautiously as to not wake his other three companions.

He ignored Noctis’ snores and Prompto’s nightly mumbles, and made his way out of the room, succeeding in his best efforts to make as little sounds as humanly possible.

 

And what greets him is absolute darkness. But it is no deafening darkness, neither is it a haunting darkness. It is a darkness that was simply there, because it exists. It is there like the sun is bright, it is there like birds to a tree. 

He turns to the right, he windows in the hallway wide open. The moonlit corridor was haunting, and the silence was deafening, speechless as if a reflection of his own disappointment. Gladiolus turned towards one of the windowsills, puts both his arms on the wood and sighed.  
He tilted his head slightly to look at the night sky, the lonely half moon and stars reflected in his brown eyes as he tried to shake off the feelings that tugged at his heartstrings. 

His lips curved into a slight smile because this is exactly why he loves the outdoors. This is why he loves camping, and sleeping outside of the tent if he could.

The night sky above is often like a form of salvation for him. Were he to wake up in anger, or in sadness, or if he were to feel that all is for naught and he is lost, all he had to do was look up and the sky would love him back, for his love towards the night sky was unconditional. The misty streak of purple or blue would stretch from one end to the other, leaving hopes and dreams in its woke. He loves the dim sky as much as it is beloved by the vivid moon and embraced by the many stars.

Though, Gladiolus is far from any calmer than when he woke up; his heart confined in an angry turmoil, his mind imprisoned beneath stormy waves. The smile that rested on his lips now gone, the same way the stars would when the glum rainclouds persist and triumphs in the skies. 

He has to acknowledge that he is far from fine, the nightmare only further exacerbated what he had kept inside of him for quite some time now.

Yet he is unable to express it physically, he thinks.

Perhaps it’s because of all the expectations that he thinks the rest of the group has of him. If not that, perhaps because he has seen everyone else mourn that he did not feel right if he were to add to all that.

Gladiolus sighs. 

Prompto does not show it much, but Gladiolus could see the anger and disappointment he harbors within his blue eyes, the despair eating away at his soul and he can only hope that the light within him is, if not as strong, stronger.  
Gladio notes how the light in those eyes flicker when he and Noctis talk about their memories of high school, and when the conversation had ended Prompto sighs heavily as he looks to the sky, sapphire orbs possessing a longing that is both hurtful and hopeful.

Ignis says that they can not change what had happened, and Gladiolus agrees; but sometimes Gladiolus notices him gaze longinly across the mountains, beyond the horizon, towards where Insomnia once stood in all its glory.  
In all the years that he has known the other man, Gladiolus often finds himself wishing that Ignis would perhaps speak to him. He believes that the both of them share the same disappointment… But he isn’t quite sure what good that would do. What if Ignis wants to get over the whole ordeal by not talking about it? The least Gladiolus wants to do is make things worse for him.

Noctis, obviously, was crystal clear in his anger and despair. Though it did not consume him, it lingers, and Gladiolus understands. Insomnia is, and remains everything to him.  
Yet it is for him too, and he wants to continuously encourage Noctis that all is not lost. But what is there to look forward to when there is no home for Noctis to return to? His kingdom ruined, his father betrayed, his people lost.  
Of course, there’s always the reason they embarked on this journey in the first place – Lady Lunafreya.  
Gladiolus does not doubt the love that Noctis has for Lunafreya and vice versa, even though the wedding was political. He does not doubt the devotion and faith that Noctis has for Lunafreya - _that_ , he is certain.   
But home is where your heart is, and for Noctis, that was Insomnia.

Insomnia was where his heart first began to beat, and learned to follow the rhythm that flows through life. Insomnia was where he first had his heart glow with warmth, and where he had his first heartbreak. Insomnia was where he watched life flourish amongst the warm rays of the sunlight, and where he watched death’s embrace under the waning moonlight.

To have all that ripped away within a heartbeat… Painful does not even begin to describe it. But the pain is there, and it is all too real. Gladiolus understands this. He understands this perfectly.

 

He himself remembered how he felt when he learned of Insomnia’s fall, and ultimately the realisation of his father’s death. 

When Ignis handed him the newspaper, he did not want to believe it. The King’s death would certainly mean the Shield’s death…

“What else do we know?”

He remembered looking towards Ignis for answers, only to be met with silence.  
Though Gladiolus was hopeful, he held his breath.

“Then we can’t be sure until we see it with our own eyes.”

 

The drive to Insomnia was silent. It was not the kind of silence that people would have because they had run out of things to say. He wished it was an awkward silence.

It was the silence that pertained to the fact that they have nothing to say out of hopelessness. A silence possible only by despair and agony, disbelief and disappointment. They were all just barely holding on to the modicum of hope they have that this was perhaps, a prank. A prank gone too far indeed, but he would believe anything at this point to prove that the headline was not real.

If only.

The sight that he was granted upon climbing the hill right outside of Insomnia was something he wished that he would never have to gaze upon. Smoke smudging the sky as far as he could see, the cyan sky stained with death and loss. His eyes scanned all that he could see, though it was not much.

He turned to Noctis for a moment, despair painted on his face.

In the middle of all that, Gladiolus wonders how he still managed to listen and make out what the Newscaster was saying on Prompto’s phone.

“…ceasefire discussions…”  
“…King Regis’ death…”  
“…Crown Prince Noctis and the Oracle Lunafreya…”  
“…dead…”

He turned to Prompto, eager to hear more. Perhaps he would hear about Iris, perhaps he would hear of his father… Anything to rekindle the hope in his heart.

Surely... Surely not all is lost. 

“Keep it on!”

He watched as Prompto hesitated, unsure of what exactly to do, and dropped his phone on the ground.

“Don’t bother!”

Noctis’ voice put a halt on Prompto’s actions, and Gladiolus’ heart dropped to his stomach. He wanted to hear more. He wanted to have a glimmer of hope in the middle of all this chaos...

But he knows that Noctis is suffering the most, and he refused to push it further, and he pulled out his own phone to try to get more information without having to force Noctis to listen to more.

He needed to know.

 

He pulls himself back to the present, and he sighs, looking down from the sky. 

What was bothering him the most, he honestly doesn't know. If it was death, he was sure that has made peace with the fact that he is an Amicitia - Shields that will die if they had to. He knows that it can't be his father's death, because he has always understood that if it has to happen, then it was because it was his duty. Clarus Amicitia was a King’s Shield – he will die protecting the King, and his father had done just that.

But it did not erase the fact that there were nights where he snuck outside alone, and had these moments to himself. All in the dark, all under the gaze of the night sky. Yet it frustrates him to no end - Nothing would erase the fact that he is constantly angry and disappointed at himself. For one, he tells himself they could not have known what Niflheim had planned, and he had to leave with Noctis; for he is his Shield, and not his father’s shield or for all of Insomnia.

And yet the words "What if..." truly is a poison, for it seeps within you and it emerges in moments where you expect it less. It attacks the deepest, most unseen crevasses in your heart, and it kills you from within. It kills you with regret, with despair, with hopelessness. It kills you because it makes you rethink everything, especially things that are much too late to change. 

And Gladiolus feels it indeed. He could feel the frustration creep around his heart, vines curling maliciously from the depths of darkness, slowly suffocating him.

But he was distracted by a glimmer from the sky that made him turn upwards, his attention fully directed to the sight of a shooting star crossing through the sky.

His lips curved into a small smile, and he thinks to himself. Maybe... _Just maybe..._

He knew very well that this was simply a superstition, but he figured that there was no harm in hoping for the best for their journey.

And so he wished for strength. Not the raw power of strength for battles, not the raw strength that would let him push the Regalia on his own, but for the strength to face what may come forward. 

For the strength to face any and all possibilities, for the strength to be himself and continue to be a rock for his friends. Because the future is bleak to him right now and it felt extremely unpredictable, so surely strength - even if a little, would suffice.

For the strength to be able to live on to protect Noctis, if anything.

-

But when he saw Noctis dead on the throne, the disappointment welled up within him as hecurled his hands into a fist, and he clenched his jaw.

He doesn't know if he is crying, he doesn't know what to feel. 

Because right now... 

He wonders if he had failed.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao can u imagine i'm in so much pain it's 5 AM
> 
>  
> 
> ok but Seriously people treat gladio like he's adamantium? but oh my god can u believe,,, YES I CAN I BELIEVE he's struggling to just like the others but thanks square enix for the nonexistent redeeming character qualities for gladio I guess.
> 
>  
> 
> Title is a part of the lyrics to the song "All Along The Watchtower"


End file.
